The Early Days of Flight
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Developments in lighter-than-air flight from
da Vinci to the Wright brothers
Ways balloons were used during the US Civil
War
Ways the balloon contributed to US victory in
the Battle of San Juan Hill during the SpanishAmerican War
Developments in heavier-than-air flight from
da Vinci to the Wright brothers
Chapter 1, Lesson 2
From da Vinci to the Wright brothers…
Chapter 1, Lesson 2
Taken from wikipedia.com
Courtesy of the Library of Congress
A
balloon operates on the principle of
buoyancy
 If the air or gas inside a balloon is lighter
than the air around it, it will float
 Hot air takes care of the first challenge of
flight—getting up into the air
Chapter 1, Lesson 2
Courtesy of Clipart.com.
A
Jesuit priest, Laurenço de Gusmão, gets
credit for inventing the hot-air balloon
 In 1709 he demonstrated his invention
before the King of Portugal
 The work of Joseph and Étienne
Montgolfier led to the first balloon flight
with humans aboard
Chapter 1, Lesson 2
 The
Montgolfiers’ experiments started with an
observation in front of the fireplace
 Joseph made a small bag out of silk and held
the bag upside down
 Then he lit a fire under the opening at the
bottom—the bag swelled and rose to the
ceiling
 Today we know that they’d simply observed a
principle of physics: Hotter air rises above
cooler air
Chapter 1, Lesson 2
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The Montgolfiers’ experiments
attracted attention
French King Louis XVI and his Queen,
Marie Antoinette, asked to see one of
the balloons in action
Eventually this led to the first manned
balloon flight, on 21 November 1783
Chapter 1, Lesson 2
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Meanwhile, the young scientist J. A. C.
Charles experimented with hydrogen
This gas is lighter than air
It provided much more lift than hot air
And the balloonists didn’t need to carry a fire
and fuel aloft to keep the air heated
Lift is the upward force on an aircraft against
gravity
Chapter 1, Lesson 2
 But
hydrogen could be risky because it is very
flammable
 Many people were killed before helium (a safer
gas) came into use
 Charles and a passenger made the first
manned hydrogen balloon flight on 1
December 1783
 Their flight lasted more than two hours and
covered more than 27 miles
Chapter 1, Lesson 2
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Benjamin Franklin saw one of Charles’s
balloons in 1783
He immediately wrote home, stressing the
military importance of the new invention
In 1793 the French Army started using
balloons for aerial reconnaissance
Aerial reconnaissance is looking over
battlefields from the sky
Chapter 1, Lesson 2
 The
third problem of flight—control of
the craft—was still a problem
 That
is, until inventors came up with the
dirigible
A
dirigible is a steerable airship
Chapter 1, Lesson 2
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The new dirigible airships had two
things that helped pilots steer them
First, they had rudders
A rudder is a movable flap or blade
attached to the rear of a craft
Pilots could use the rudder to turn the
craft left or right
Chapter 1, Lesson 2
 Second, the
new
airships had power
sources that drove
propellers
 Equipped with
propellers, the craft
could move through
the air much as ships
move through water
Chapter 1, Lesson 2
Courtesy of the Library of Congress
 In
1852 Henri Giffard of France built a
cigar-shaped dirigible
 A three-horsepower steam engine pushed
it through the sky at about five miles an
hour
 Most historians give Giffard credit for
inventing the first successful dirigible
Chapter 1, Lesson 2
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Some inventors tried out internal keels
A keel is a structure that extends along the
center of a craft from the front to the back
A keel helps keep the craft rigid and fully
extended
A rigid craft has a frame that contains several
balloons to provide lift
 A non-rigid ship holds its shape through gas
pressure alone
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Chapter 1, Lesson 2
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In 1872, German engineer Paul
Haenlein built a dirigible with an
internal-combustion engine
An internal-combustion engine is an
engine in which the fuel is burned inside,
rather than in an external furnace
For example, a gas-burning car engine
is an internal combustion engine
Chapter 1, Lesson 2
 Santos-Dumont’s
first dirigible was 82
feet long, with a three-horsepower
gasoline motor
 It could reach an altitude of 1,300 feet
 A pilot steered it with a rudder
 Between 1898 and 1907 Santos-Dumont
built and flew 14 of these non-rigid
airships
Chapter 1, Lesson 2
In 1901, Santos-Dumont flew an
airship around the Eiffel Tower
 He completed a nine-mile loop in less
than half an hour
 This won him a big cash prize from a
rich oilman named Henri Deutsch
 Santos-Dumont gave the money to his
own workers and to the poor of Paris
 He sparked interest in aviation
worldwide
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Chapter 1, Lesson 2
Courtesy of Clipart.com
In July 1900 Count von Zeppelin, a German
inventor, built and flew the first successful
rigid dirigible, the LZ-1
This led to the world’s first commercial airships
The Zeppelins were luxurious:
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Roomy, wood-paneled cabins
Carried 20 or more passengers
They flew at speeds exceeding 40 miles an
hour
Chapter 1, Lesson 2
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After the Civil War began, many aeronauts
volunteered their services for the Union
cause
Aeronauts are people who travel in airships
or balloons
One of these aeronauts was Thaddeus Lowe
He tried to interest Gen Winfield Scott—head
of the Union Army—in balloons
But Scott saw no military need for them, and
Lowe didn’t give up
Chapter 1, Lesson 2
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Lowe was a friend of Joseph Henry, the head of
the Smithsonian Institution
Henry convinced President Lincoln to let Lowe
demonstrate what a balloon could do
This demonstration made Lincoln realize how
useful balloons could be for keeping an eye on
Confederate forces
Lincoln sent Gen Scott a note asking him to
reconsider Lowe’s offer
Chapter 1, Lesson 2
Lowe was finally allowed to organize the
Balloon Corps of the Union Army
But it was a struggle:
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Lowe often had to pay for staff and supplies out of
his own pocket
It was sometimes hard to get permission to send
the balloon aloft
Despite some success, the Army disbanded
the balloon corps in 1863
Chapter 1, Lesson 2
 In
1892, Brig Gen Adolphus V. Greely
established a balloon section in the
Signal Corps
 A few years later, the United States was at
war with Spain
 The Battle of San Juan Hill gave the Army
a chance to see what a balloon could do
Chapter 1, Lesson 2
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Lt Col George M. Derby insisted on
bringing the Army’s single spy balloon as
close to the action as possible
From that position, observers on board
could see a new trail leading to the
Spanish forces
US commanders divided their Soldiers
into two forces to advance against the
enemy
Chapter 1, Lesson 2
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The observers also
suggested directing
artillery fire from El
Pozo Hill against the
San Juan Hill trenches
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Historians say these
actions may have
turned the battle into
a US victory
Chapter 1, Lesson 2
Courtesy of the Library of Congress
 Sir
George Cayley picked up where
Leonardo da Vinci left off in developing
gliders
 This Englishman’s gliders resembled
today’s model gliders
 They had the same design as most of
today’s airplanes, with wings up front and
a tail behind
Chapter 1, Lesson 2
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Cayley also had the idea of using a
fixed wing for lift and a separate
system for propulsion
The fixed-wing idea seems simple now
But it was quite new at a time when
many people still had flapping birds’
wings as their model for flight
Chapter 1, Lesson 2
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Cayley identified three important aviation
forces:
Lift
 Drag, which is the pull, or slowing effect, of air on
an aircraft
 Thrust, which is the forward force driving an
aircraft
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In 1850 Cayley built the first successful fullsize manned glider
Chapter 1, Lesson 2
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American John Montgomery unveiled his
glider to the public in 1905
He thrilled people by performing sharp dives
and turns in the air
His glider reached speeds of 68 miles an
hour
But on 31 October 1911, he was killed in a
glider accident
Chapter 1, Lesson 2
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Otto Lilienthal of Germany is often
called the “Father of Modern Aviation”
Between 1891 and 1896 he made more
than 2,000 glides
He also developed a powered biplane
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A biplane is an aircraft with two main
supporting surfaces, usually placed one above
the other
Chapter 1, Lesson 2
 On
the eve of the test
flight of his biplane,
he decided to fly his
glider one more time
 His glider stalled at
50 feet up and
dropped like a rock,
and Lilienthal was
killed
Chapter 1, Lesson 2
Taken from wikipedia.com
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In 1843, W. S. Henson & John
Stringfellow designed an aircraft
theoretically capable of carrying a
man
The two received a patent for their
design
A patent is a legal document protecting
the rights of an inventor
Chapter 1, Lesson 2
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Their aircraft, the Ariel, was to be a
monoplane
A monoplane is a single-wing airplane
It would have a 150-foot wingspan
It would be powered by a steam engine
driving two six-bladed propellers
Chapter 1, Lesson 2
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As it turned out,
Ariel was
built
the
never
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But in 1848 Stringfellow built a steam-driven
model that did fly
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This was the first successful powered flight
of a heavier-than-air craft
Chapter 1, Lesson 2
Courtesy of HIP/Art Resource, New York
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Dr. Samuel Pierpont Langley was
one of the first Americans to try to
build a flying machine with a
motor
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He started experimenting with
aerodynamics in 1885. His first
flying models were powered by
rubber bands
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In 1898 the US government gave
him a $50,000 grant to continue
his work
Chapter 1, Lesson 2
Courtesy of Hulton Archive/Getty Images, Inc
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On 7 October 1903 his aircraft, the
Aerodrome was ready for a test flight
The plane’s engine worked well, but the
aircraft caught on the launching car on
takeoff and fell into the river
Two months later, Langley tried—and
failed—again
Government officials withdrew their support,
so Langley gave up his project
Chapter 1, Lesson 2
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Historians fault Langley for spending too
much time on how to power his aircraft,
and not enough on how to control it
Even so, for his contributions to aviation,
Langley Air Force Base in southeastern
Virginia is named after him
Chapter 1, Lesson 2
Courtesy of Senior Master Sgt. Keith Reed/the U.S. Air Force
 Done—the
early
days of flight
 Next—the Wright
brothers
Chapter 1, Lesson 2
Courtesy of NASA